good idea. i dont know what to take out of it, though. no moral/punchline? maybe i need to mull it over a couple of times. also, i never got why people needed swim lessons, it seems kind of self explanatory you know?

as I read it, panicking/becoming adult will last until 33? phew, so things finally gonna be settled in a couple of months…😛

btw, a short – delayed – note in connection to “the line”:

if u find some spare time, you might want to have a look at Georg Elser, representing another kind of 3rd Reich resistance – he single-handed tried to assassinate Hitler already in 1939: but while his self-made bomb exploded as planned, he missed him for 13 minutes…. talking about unlucky numbers😛

Not totally creative but very nice and funny realisation. depressing though…one starts to think about your own plans and how you end up in the same places as everyone. If anyone understands german, the rap group “blumentopf” made a very cool song about the same things.

What the f–, not totally creative?!
THis one’s amazing and very funny. Painfully true too. Who doesn’t sell out though?? I do what I like and want, but still a sell-out…sell my time and skills for money.

I’ve been very EXTRA impressed over the last few strips, our Winston seems to be touching a higher plane with his subjects.

Having gone through every one of the comics and loved it, this is the first time I’ve been somewhat dissatisfied and angry about what’s been done. It’s always funny to be cynical and snide about some aspect of life, poking fun at some unfairness or stereotyped caricatures that our consumerist societies force on our unromantic, listless lives. That kind of limited sarcasm is incisive and funny. But maybe i’m stupid, but i don’t get this one. This one pokes fun at all life! What’s the point of that? What’s the point of “watching friends die”, “deteriorate”? I honestly hope to whatever god there is that you don’t believe this to be true of life at 84, and that we’re all condemned to this kind of unsatisfying, pointless death.

Can’t life be satisfying? Simply for the joy that is living? Couldn’t this comic have made someone’s day better by starting with a sunrise and ending with a fine sunset? I’m sorry to say that having laughed at or empathized with just about every other one of your works, I didn’t laugh at this one.

Please, if I was too quick or missed something, tell me. For I respect your work very much, understand that this is your art, expect and ask for no changes, and am only commenting on it from a pretty subjective standpoint.

you know what, maybe i’m angry, or can’t find it funny because this could be close to the truth! You hit too close to the possible truth this time! God, how we would not want this to be the truth.

Here’s my point, there’s much more beautiful aspects of the truth than this! Peeing in your pants and ranting away aimlessly at 87, you might have had kids, raised them. They would’ve had grandchildren, raised those, and on you 87th birthday your family gathered to wish you a long and happy life, which you know you’ve had and will keep having for a few more years, and when you die, you die a satisfied man, without even asking if you had regrets!

Realistic: If you didn’t get anything out of it, that’s fine, and I agree that it’s not my best work in many ways. Maybe what i myself got out of it was at least a visualization of the course of a life, the checking off of boxes that can never be un-checked, and the briefness of the time spent between infinities of nonexistence. And i’ll also add that you are free and encouraged to deviate as far as possible from the events listed on the calendar! I sure as hell don’t plan to retire when i’m 63, and i sure as hell don’t plan to go gently either. I think it was certainly a satire of a “traditional” life more than anything. “Is this all there is?” The comic could have been better, but there’s at least some value in there i would feebly contend. I suspect i will return to this concept in the future, as i feel i could have taken it further in one direction or another. It’s decent, but it could be more than that.

Was it Flaubert… “Life is a woman giving birth into a grave?” … if it isn’t, it should be. And if that child recorded its half-second plummet, it would probably look something like this. Ah, THIS is what I come to Subnormality for! *tip of the tophat*

Hmm… it is sad that this is how we perceive “traditional life”. I agree with you that I was nodding to just about every bit of this comic until I suddenly realized that I was unhappy with it. It’s true, but it’s only the truth of our imaginations, biased perceptions, pre-conceived notions that are perhaps more TV-made than real. Thinking seriously about it, i don’t know anyone who lives like this, and if i think they may live like this, that just means i don’t know anything about their lives. Lives are varied, glorious, sad, happy, and a whole bunch of other things mixed up together, and we could never hope to even peer into 1/100th of anyone’s life, and make judgments of them, because we all know, that no one else knows ourselves as we do, that it is impossible for them to do so, and thus unfair for them to judge us.

Also, what is the “traditional life”? Not to be a total hippie, but I was in Sudan a few months back, and damn, we stopped by on a street in Khartoum, sat down next to a street-side vendor of coffees and teas, and watched the sunset over the nile along with a bunch of regulars, just on the side of a road. Now that was beautiful, and these people do that every day, that’s traditional life, and perhaps we shouldn’t ridicule “traditional” so easily.

The thing I respect most about your work is how sharply you critique and deride the most pathetic and laughable aspects of our society, and thank god there’s someone doing this out there. I hope though, that with your success (which is inevitable and obvious, given your talent), you will not be blinded by it. I wish that you will always retain the clearsightedness that enabled your incisive criticism. Don’t become indiscriminate, and please use the power of your comics responsibly, for they touch and inspire many, yet they can sew the seeds of cynicism and despair as well.

nice pix, and the comic reminds me to get out more.
Re: depression; any realistic depiction of our lives will depress us because we have normal i.e. abnormally high aspirations and goals.
everyone who is the least bit introspective and not a psychopath will experience regret … don’t dwell, deal.

Having it all spaced out in 3 year steps really gives things perspective. Childhood is great but you have no control of 99% of it. Then suddenly you’re expected to choose a career and figure out what you’re going to do with the rest of your life. Some people have a hard time, and drift and struggle. Ages 20-30 is your prime but its also the hardest part i think. Then middle age and onward… sure you figured out your career, hopefully have a house (tiny condo) and a life partner.. but its also has that stink of a slow decline towards death. PS Write that novel.

PS Nice call Realistic, but entertainers should not be held responsible for their impact. If an artist feels restricted by something like that, or anything at all, will he still be producing something genuine?

Is it just a coincidence that March 8 is International Women’s Day? I’m 42 and have lost touch with all my old feminist mates. But it’s ok, I’ve now made new ones! At 42 can one reflect on what we fought so hard for and why Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears are now the role models of young women?? I must say, though, that at 42 I’ve got a much better sense of humour!
H

The best thing about your comics is reading the comments page to find out there are people who think like me around the world, because the people that I see day to day to me seem happy on a delusional level(e.g. screaming, hi 5’ing and acting like they won the lotto because it’s 5pm on friday and the company is ‘kind’ enough to provide a beer each etc. take that and repeat for 40 years)

Considering the uniformly worsening thread of the entire flow of life, the optimism of the final square is the most alarming. In other words, at the rate things go, “not existing” seems like an anomalously happy ending. What if it isn’t so?